The police on Friday found the baseball bat, which Juhu-based tutor Sachin Kapoor used to kill his 74-year-old mother, at their residence. A team from the forensic science laboratory in Kalina, too, searched the seventh-floor flat in Kalpataru Solitaire.
During the interrogation of the accused, the police learnt that the domestic help, Chhotu alias Lalkumar Mandal, cleared the bloodstains of Beena Kapoor from the floor and other parts of the house. Investigation also revealed that Sachin removed around 13 CCTV cameras fitted inside the flat and the recordings and threw them in the Matheran gorge where he dumped the body.
A team will visit Matheran to search for the equipment as those might contain very crucial evidence against the duo.
The police on Friday handed over the woman’s body to her elder son Nevin, who arrived in the city from the US in the morning. He performed the last rites, an officer said.
Between 6 am and 7 am on Tuesday, an argument over a property dispute broke out. After killing Beena, Sachin sat clueless for around half an hour before wrapping the body in a plastic cover and putting it in a cardboard box. Around 9.30 am, he, with the help of Mandal, took the body on a wheelchair from their flat in Kalpataru Solitaire and put it in his car.
While Mandal returned to the flat, Sachin went all the way to Navi Mumbai and looked for a spot to dump the body. After driving around Vashi and adjoining nodes till 5 pm, he called Mandal for help, a police officer said. The duo then travelled to Neral and disposed of the body in a valley along Neral-Matheran road. They also got rid of the cardboard box at some distance and returned to the Kapoor family’s second flat on 13th Road in Juhu from where the two were picked up for questioning and arrested.
The murder came to light after Nevin tried to reach his mother and brother around 10.30 pm, but failed despite several phone calls. He then called the building’s security officer but he did not pick it either. Worried, Nevin called Juhu police station and requested them to visit his residence.
A police team reached the building around 11 pm and found the flat locked. On checking the mobile tower locations, they found that the woman’s phone was in the house whereas Sachin’s mobile was somewhere near Panvel. With the help of a fire brigade team, the police broke open the door. A missing person’s report was filed based on the statement of Javed Mapari, the building’s security supervisor, in the early hours of Wednesday.
The police suspected foul play after the CCTV cameras in the building caught Sachin and Chhotu placing some heavy luggage – brought on a wheelchair – in his car.
Sachin is a postgraduate in mathematics and has worked as a teacher with two English medium schools in the western suburbs.